European countries, Scandinavian in particular, use what is known as a Tax Agency Reconciliation (TAR) system. In Denmark and Sweden, the vast majority of taxpayers use the program.

This is more than a theoretical idea. The multi-page, multi-form 1040 tax icon carries with it an instruction booklet of 179 pages of gibberish. The IRS estimates that US taxpayers toil 3.8 billion hours each year gathering information and preparing the 1040 alone, at an imputed cost of $120 billion, or a full 10 percent of the tax revenues collected by the agency.

Yet tax return simplification is not just about easing the burden for 150 million individuals come April 15. It’s also about converting confused, agitated, and tempted noncompliers into silent, mollified, and compliant taxpayers.

The country’s tax compliance rate is 86 percent and the “tax gap” – the amount of taxes that are owed annually but not paid – exceeds $300 billion a year. Each 1 percent improvement in compliance will produce an added $20 billion in revenues. That’s serious money in today’s era of unsustainable trillion-dollar deficits.